Pros

Ability to translate Multiple SQL queries into a very easy to use visual GUI.

Provides the ability to pre-define segments, run them once in off hours, store them in their own system tables for quick youth and a significant reduction in CPU utilization on the database.

It’s use of Reusable objects. Including user variables to pre-define calculations one time, macros that you can create and pass values to parameterize the SQL code And the creation of templates to easily replicate work.

It’s ability to bring in external data on the fly that can very easily be mapped into any flowchart.

It’s flexibility and creating UNIX script via triggers to automate sending of files to multiple vendors with different FTP sites

Cons

Logging is not easy to read and is incomplete. It has a lot of information i'm not interested in, but the queries that really interest me, p.e. the queries used for calculation of derived fields are missing. I also miss the queries that add the result of the derived field to the final selection.

Difficult to document a flow in a good manner.

No way to search in a flow. and over all the flows where something is calculated.

No way to have a good overview of what is happening in a flow or a process in a flow.

The calculation of derived fields is far too slow.

You can not make decisions in a flow based on data.

You have to promote flows by copying them manually from a test environment to a production environment.

Likelihood to Renew

IBM Campaign8.7

Based on 12 answers

When we worked in SAS we used macros before to perform all the tasks in the selection process. When things changed on a global level we modified the macro programs, and all the campaigns written with the macros automatically changed. This is impossible in Unica. We use templates to create the campaigns, but if the templates change, the old campaigns still run the older versions. With about 500 campaigns a year, it is impossible the update all the running campaigns manually with the newer version of a template. If there are changes in data sources, it is really difficult to find out with unica campaigns are affected, and very time consuming to make the changes. In SAS we it was possible to automatically document all our programs, so that we could easily search that documentation for the use of variables, files, calculations and so on, in UNICA this is all done manually.

Implementation

IBM Campaign7.2

Based on 2 answers

- We had to rebuild a part of the datamart afterwards to tighten up and simplify the selection process. But as it was too time consuming to rebuild all the existing campaigns, we no run campaigns on different versions of the datamart. - The response tracking of the campaigns never worked out well, it was impossible to implement a direct response where there is a link between the lead and the response in our operational process

Through realtime capabilities, highly personalised versions of the web site for each individual customer, based on their marketing data (what we know), and information from the website (what they are doing right now).